Hard energy lessons from Europe point to our future
In Australia, all the way down at the bottom of the world, it sometimes takes time for certain messages to…
To be Australian
Toward the end of last year (before the Bondi terrorist attack), I was talking with a young woman whose parents…
Net zero is il-Liberal
Menzies would oppose it outright
This is serious
For the Treasury...
The most important sentence about Net Zero published this year
‘Australia faces significant climate-related risks regardless of future emissions reductions.’ This is the most important sentence in a recent report…
Education nation
The great equaliser becomes the great disappointment
Conflict, confusion, and caution
Why are there so many lawyers?
(A failed) Australian realignment
Australia is due a political realignment. The split in the Liberal-National coalition this week could be a good thing if…
An island of strangers
Is this the end of the UK’s open borders experiment?
What the Australian election means
In his political history of the 1980s and early 1990s, The End of Certainty, Paul Kelly articulated the tectonic shifts…
Anzac memories
War and peace and history
Apparently Peter Dutton is a Liberal
If he wanted to cut taxes, he would
The problem with modelling
One of my economics professors at university once said that when someone tells you the results of their economic modelling,…
How long can we cruise?
Australia is like a cyclist who has stopped peddling. We have been travelling for some time ,not under our own…
Labor policy makes gas more expensive
Sometimes politicians say things that are true. When they do, people often note that they are ‘saying the quiet part…
Australian notes
On 30 November Britons and Australians alike celebrate the 150th birthday of a great, but largely forgotten man: Winston S.…
Do we fill job vacancies with pensioners or migrants?
The Albanese government is demonstrating a truism in Australian politics: no matter what party you vote for, you’ll get rapid…
Australian notes
Why on earth are we stopping people who want to work from working? I used to work at a community…
The danger of ‘luxury beliefs’
“Luxury beliefs” are all the rage in elite circles. Rob Henderson, a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge who…
Why a move to home quarantine is long overdue
For those stuck in their umpteenth lockdown – despair not! It seems that after 18 months of working from home, someone…
Governments might refuse to acknowledge the devastation of lockdown, but the top end of town is talking
One would be hard-pressed to find many silver linings as millions of Australians endured further lockdowns in July, but the admission by many business…
Covid notes
Talkers, we need to talk.. Two things stand out almost immediately when one gets on an early morning train in…
The Rorting Twenties
Covid: robbing the poor to give to the rich
Daniel Andrews’ budget belts business already caught by Covid
“There have been some big winners from the pandemic – and after a year defined by widespread sacrifice, it’s only…
Don’t forget the media’s part in our ongoing corona confusion
For the past year, Australians have been told to listen to the experts. Schools were closed, businesses were forced to…
